


For whom the bells toll

by That_Marsh_Fellow



Series: Palpatine x Obi-Wan: Arranged marriage AU [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Arranged Marriage, Concordance of Fealty, M/M, Mace just wants to go home, Marriage, Memories, OOC, Romance, a bit of an interview, some Force stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_Marsh_Fellow/pseuds/That_Marsh_Fellow
Summary: Grand master Yoda chose him to represent the Order on Palpatine and Kenobi's marriage. But the ceremony suddenly reminds master Windu of another ritual. A ritual in which he participated himself.
Relationships: Mace Windu/Eeth Koth, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Sheev Palpatine, T'ra Saa & Mace Windu, T'ra Saa/Tholme (mentioned)
Series: Palpatine x Obi-Wan: Arranged marriage AU [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927522
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	For whom the bells toll

**Author's Note:**

> So basically, it's the same marriage, but from a different angle :з  
> And this work also provides some insight into macekoth's relationship!

He never allowed himself to think of the Grand master in a negative way. He might not have always agreed with the older Jedi completely, but he still had genuine respect for the little long-eared master and his centuries-old experience and wisdom that far exceeded any human's. So now he sighed and shook his head, trying to ease that tight bundle of nerves he'd been since early morning.

Mace Windu was never a public figure. Yes, he was one of the most famous members of the Jedi Order, but to say that he liked this fame — no, never. His status of one of the legendary Jedi masters, the inventor of his own form of lightsaber combat, a fearless knight of the Light always ready to guard the Galaxy, and so on, and so on, he perceived first of all as a responsibility. Responsibility for passing his knowledge to his padawans, responsibility for maintaining peace in the Republic and its systems, responsibility for preserving the well-being and prosperity of the Order. That is why he valued his position among the greatest — as one of the best, he felt in his hands the power to do much more in the name of the Jedi and the Republic. But the fame that came with such a position was tiring him.

“Master... Windu? Master Windu!” someone called out behind his back again. “You are… You are master Windu! The very one! Yoda's right hand! Excuse me, may I have a few words with you?”

Windu winced slightly. This was the third time today that overly curious journalists managed to find him again and again in the crowd of guests which he just wanted to blend in.

The korun tried to use a roundabout maneuver. Deftly, he squeezed into an open space between two richly dressed middle-aged women and a decorative marble column covered with flowers, got around a group of young people talking about the opening of some long-term deposits and a couple of grey-skinned muuns, and stopped in the shade of a large bush near the closed doors of the inner hall.  
Then he turned his head, — and, to his great displeasure, saw the smiling face of a young lorrdian, standing right in front of him and holding a round holorecorder at the ready.

“Gilber! Gilber Reekta! “Coruscant News Deck!” Very pleased to meet you! A great honor!” the man rattled in one breath, vigorously gesturing. “Please, just a couple of questions!”

Mace looked around the garden with the hope, but the reporter was already here and left no way to avoid the conversation. The Jedi Master sighed. He never allowed himself to think negatively of the Grand master, but Yoda's adamant decision that he should be the one to attend the wedding of the Naboo Senator and their former Padawan did not appear to him as the most justified one. The ceremony, as expected, gathered quite a large number of people, and not only representatives of Naboo and Melida/Daan, but other interested parties as well. Including those who were specifically interested in the Jedi past of one of the spouses.

Windu, of course, understood why he had been chosen: sending a senior member of the High Council as a Jedi representative could certainly benefit the reputation of the Order. He understood, but he still thought there were more suitable candidates. Because having the status was only a part of his today’s role. The other, much more significant part, was to protect the honor of the Order and the Jedi from the media, who were obviously scouring for new scandals. And, by the Force, the korun would definitely not mind changing places with master Gallia, or master Trebor, or anyone else right now.

“Very well. But keep brief and to the point,” finally, he gave up. “And only a couple of questions.”

“Great!” the lorrdian exclaimed enthusiastically. "Then why don’t we take a seat and I'll turn on the recorder.”

In the next two minutes, while the young man was quickly explaining the importance of his news agency in the media sphere of not only Coruscant, but most of the Core systems as well, they reached the first chairs in the farthest row from the central fountain. Master Windu picked the nearest one and Gilber sat right next to him.

“Tell me, master, do you confirm that it was Mr. Kenobi's sole decision to leave the Jedi Order?”

“Do you have any doubts about it, Mr. Reekta? I assumed that master Trebor had already explained the Order's position on this matter quite clearly.”

“Sure, sure,” the lorrdian nodded, clicking the recorder. “Did you know Obi-Wan in person?”

“Only formally.”

“Yes, of course. But nevertheless, master Windu, do you think Obi-Wan could have achieved more if he had followed the path of the Jedi than he did in politics?”

Mace took his time to answer this one. He couldn't say that Obi-Wan wasn't a capable boy. The story of how a promising thirteen-year-old youngling almost ended up in Agricorps remained exactly the one of those cases when the korun did not agree with Yoda's position. Windu really couldn't understand why the Grand master was so determined to force Kenobi into becoming master Jinn’s padawan. In his own opinion, there were much better options rather than that contentious and headstrong Qui-Gon. He knew for a fact that even master Yaddle, who hadn't taken any apprentices since master Rancisis’s knighting, was interested in young Obi-Wan. But Yoda's word was still the last. And it was only by some lucky accident that Jinn changed his mind at the last moment. Although... Was it indeed lucky, in the end?

“It's impossible to predict the future,” the korun said evasively. “Especially the future that comes from the not-happened past. If the Force wanted Obi-Wan to succeed as a diplomat rather than a Jedi, then this was his way.”

Gilber spinned the recording device in his fingers thoughtfully. The lorrdians, due to their culture, had an eye for small details and could easily tell when someone was not telling them the whole truth. But for some reason, master Windu didn't give the empathic lorrdian any confidence that getting this piece of information wouldn't cost him a bone or two in the process. So the young man decided to temporarily drop the subject, leaving a note in his holorecorder for later.

“How do you find the wedding of Kenobi and Palpatine?”

“What do you mean by that?” The question, completely unexpected, caught Windu off guard for a moment.

“Well, a wedding is a rather... personal event. And the Jedi, as far as I know, tend to distance themselves from such displays of emotions. How do you feel about being present at this wedding? Are you happy for the future spouses?”

The korun sighed again. The one thing that was still firmly entrenched in the minds of ordinary people was apparently this stereotype about the prohibition of any feelings.

He adjusted the sleeves of his new formal tunics (which Depa, after a long argument with her former master about the Jedi dress code, had finally persuaded him to wear instead of the usual ones) and clasped his hands in his lap.

“I’m ready to express my congratulations to Kenobi and his spouse, both on my own behalf and on behalf of the Jedi Order. In fact, that's why I'm here, and you're not wrong about my attitude towards this marriage.” he paused. “But you're wrong about another thing. The Jedi feel emotion just as others do, according to their species. A Jedi learns to _trust_ their feelings but not to be _ruled_ by them. That is why…”

But the korun was not allowed to finish his thought, though it was not the lorrdian's fault. It was just at this moment, that the muted echoes of a solemn melody, slowly growing louder and louder, flew across the garden, and all the guests hurried to take their seats. Gilber made a hasty apology and immediately disappeared — apparently, as a reporter, he went to find a place closer to the center of events.

Mace shrugged his shoulders and turned his head toward the inner doors, just in time to see them swing open to reveal the betrothed themselves.

Standing among the others and watching the couple going down the central path, Mace only quickly glanced over Palpatine's black suit before turning his gaze to Obi-Wan's profile, framed by ginger curls, — also noticing a truly impressive shiny winged tiara on top of his head.

He told the reporter that he was here for congratulations. It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. On the eve of his trip to Naboo, the Master of the Order spoke with Yoda, and the Grand master added another small request to his mission.

Windu made a slight mental effort, reaching out to the Force, searching for Obi-Wan's presence. Mace didn't know about what Yoda and Kenobi had been talking about after the day master Trebor had ruffled their feathers with the news of the engagement, but yesterday the green Jedi had expressed a desire to lowkey check whether Obi-Wan's feelings for his chosen Senator were as genuine as they had been stated in the news. That was the reason why the korun made an attempt to touch the former padawan in the Force — but the result was neither good nor bad. There just was no result at all.

Mace hummed in surprise to himself as he tried again, but still failed. Kenobi's mental shield was impenetrable, and amazingly so for someone whose abilities in the Force were supposed to remain at the level of a junior padawan. When he did not succeed again, Windu, out of mere curiosity, tried to do the same to Palpatine — but the dim presence of the senator from Naboo was barely discernible under the same dense, unreadable fog that clouded the Force around both of them. The korun bit his lip and sat down, deep in thought.

The pontifex in front of the main fountain, where both future spouses had just stopped, took the floor, and the entire garden fell completely silent.

What could mean such a perfect mental shield? His own knowledge did not have any information about similar cases, when an inexperienced Force-user could gain such a skill on their own. Even Depa and Echuu, his own students who had spent a lot of time in the Library as padawans, studying holocrons and scrolls, still needed his help in mastering this knowledge. But as for Kenobi…

“...to witness the creation of a new sacred union between two beloved…”

He was barely listening to the priest, absorbed in his own thoughts, but something in this phrase suddenly caught his attention. Mace blinked. “Between two beloved”. Kenobi's mental shield felt slightly familiar. And he suddenly understood why. He was looking for the wrong answer. It wasn't about _who_ used the technique. It was about _why_. The power of this shield was not in the level of knowledge, but in its purpose, in the necessity, from which such a power was generated. He had seen it before, and more than once. It was the similar type of shield to the one Eeth Koth used when the zabrak didn't want anyone else to interrupt their little private moments in the Room of Thousand Fountains.

Windu turned his gaze back to the betrothed, who now joined hands at the altar. The priest paused to read out the first wedding vow to Palpatine. One accidentally noticed similarity raised other memories with it too — until Windu had to forcibly stop them all by clenching his hand tightly around the lightsaber hilt on his belt. But one last memory still slipped through. An image of himself standing in the same way as Palpatine now stood — and the determined stare of Eeth in front of him, same as how Kenobi was now looking at his future husband.

He would never call it a wedding. The Order, of course, would never have tolerated such a word spoken within its walls too. But what he and Eeth did five years ago, the way it felt — oh, an accidental stranger probably wouldn't have found a better word to describe it. Five years ago, the korun had shown Eeth a single file that he had found after several weeks of searching in the most long-forgotten sectors of the Archives. And that day five years ago the zabrak said «yes».

The priest at the fountain broke the silence and spoke out loudly:

“Sheev Palpatine, will you take Obi-Wan Kenobi to be your lawfully wedded spouse?”

_Mace squeezed Eeth’s fingers a little tighter in his palm and raised his head, firmly looking up into the face of the tall, majestic neti woman standing at their side._

_“I will.”_

_The wavy ends of the tree sprouts that made up master T'ra Saa's luxuriant, long hair stirred slightly, curling up tighter. The neti nodded, turning to face the zabrak._

_“Master Koth, do you confirm that your wish to enter the Concordance of Fealty is mutual and voluntary?”_

_“I do.”_

_“Master Koth, do you also confirm that you are aware that the bonds of the Concordance are stronger and deeper than any other Force-bond, and that once the ritual of the Concordance is completed, it will be impossible to snap them by any known means?"_

_The zabrak frowned, not taking his eyes off Windu's hands, which were holding his own in reassurance._

_“I do.”_

_“In that case, as an entrusted one chosen by both of you, in the face of the Living Force, I declare you decent and ready to engage in the ancient ritual of the Concordance of Fealty. You may start now. And may the Force be with you.”_

_T'ra bowed stiffly, and her tree strands twitched — the neti was proud of her apprentice._

_T'ra Saa had been looking after Mace ever since a six-month-old baby from Haruun-Kal had been brought to the Jedi Temple. To be honest, she did think of the korun almost as of her own son. The neti did not breed like humans — being, in fact, a race of sentient plants that kept humanoid forms only for the convenience of communication, they lived for several millennia and, when they died, they left behind seeds from which the new young neti grew. But the small, always earnest, dark-skinned boy who liked to doze in her lap evoked in the neti Jedi master feelings very similar to ones a mother would have for her child. And T'ra Saa, who had eventually raised the famous Master of the Order almost from the cradle, understood him better than anyone else. In particular, she understood what he really meant while saying very different words._

_The neti remembered Mace coming to her, already a grown-up, independent man, but still looking for her company and advice, just as he had when he was a youngling. And T'ra couldn't refuse to help him, because she knew exactly what these carefully hidden changes in him meant: the way he glanced away, his sudden pauses, his grim sighs. She understood him, but she didn't stop him. On the contrary, it was her who advised the korun to search the Archives for this old bonding ritual. It was probably not the most Jedi act on the part of master Saa — but it was the most motherly act on the part of T'ra. And she wasn't going to regret this decision._

_“Your Mace is a lovesick idiot,” master Tholme had told her. “You are aware of what you're doing, right? You leave him no choice but to become even more attached to his... What was the other one's name... Koth, no? To Koth, right. But why, T'ra? They are both Jedi, and you are a Jedi too, but you are deliberately indulging them in breaking the Code? Isn't our example enough for you to understand what pain awaits them once they choose this path?”_

_A tree sprout gently wrapped around Tholme's waist, pulling the grey-haired man closer._

_“Our example is enough for me to know that the forced denial of these feelings won't do them any better, either,” the neti murmured in his ear. “«You must believe in the choice of the Force.» I told you that — and I said the same words to Mace. Whatever the hardships, we got through them, Tholme. And see for yourself how much we were able to achieve only together.”_

_As master Saa closed the door, leaving them alone, Mace turned to Eeth again, letting go of his hands, and reached for his lightsaber instead. Holding the hilt in his open palm, Windu addressed the zabrak:_

_“Master Eeth Koth. As you know, for a Jedi, his lightsaber is not just a weapon. It is a part of his life, a part of his self that he must never give away. Bearing this in mind, I myself humbly offer this saber, a product of my own hands, to you, and ask you to accept it as a sign of my promise to always remain your faithful friend and to regain your trust.”_

_Koth cautiously reached his hand forward — and Mace obediently released the grip, leaving his lightsaber in the zabrak's fingers. The Force around them flickered almost visibly, as if in anticipation, and Eeth bowed his head in agreement, holding Mace’s black-and-gold hilt against his chest. Then he snapped the belt ring — and with his free hand handed his own saber to Mace._

_“I hope that your lightsaber will serve me as a fine weapon, master Windu,” Eeth's voice trembled slightly with excitement. “Just like mine will serve you. And just like my saber in your hands, I myself hope to prosper from your company. Therefore, I am happy to willingly entrust my lightsaber to you and promise you all that you promised me.”_

_The growing tension in the Force reached its peak — and suddenly it burst in different colors, twining these connecting colourful Force-threads around both of them. They stood in a complete silence for a while, facing each other and holding the other's sabers in their hands, unable to speak. Then Eeth exhaled loudly, hastily creating a protective foggy Force-shield over their newly formed bond, and wrapped both his arms around the korun’s neck._

_The tingling sensation of a Force-bond and the knowledge that they had just entered a ritual that actually united them more than any wedding ceremony, immediately appeared to Mace not even half as striking as this deep, telling kiss._

“I will,” he heard Obi-Wan say, as the ambassador took his last vow in front of the priest and the guests.

The memory came to an abrupt end, disturbed by reality. Mace couldn't help but smile — though he wasn't sure if his smile was meant for joyous Kenobi at the fountain or the shining zabrak in his head — and then he heard another, deep, solemn sound. The wedding bells were tolling for the new couple.

The guests rose from their seats, all wanting to congratulate the newlyweds on their marriage. The korun also stood up slowly. The toll of the bells finally put an end to his doubts. After the ceremony, Yoda would receive his assurance of Obi-Wan's sincerity. This mental shield of Kenobi's told him a lot, and for the most part it wasn't meant for the Grand master's ears. But all that he, Mace, would tell the old green Jedi on this account, was going to be the truth. Obi-Wan was happy away from the Order and no longer wanted anyone to interfere in his private life.

“Master Windu!” the familiar voice called him out again, and Gilber's agitated face popped out of the crowd. “Do you still plan to say some congratulations now?”

“Of course, Mr. Reekta,” the master nodded, and pulled his hand away from the lightsaber on his belt. A narrow, elongated silver hilt with embossed carvings along the stabilizing ring glinted in the sunlight. “Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a small word-play with a quote from one of the works of the poet J. Donne (yep, the same work from which the title for E. Hemingway's novel came form)
> 
> "...And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."


End file.
